This is an important win for Aegis because it provides an effective sales and marketing channel to small and mid-sized fleets. It’s also an important win for CBC’s members because of the potentially devastating impact that a distracted driving incident can have, both emotionally and financially, as eloquently communicated in CBCs marketing materials.

The reality is that smart phones and tablets are becoming an indispensible tool for many SME and independent fleet operators; however having those tools in vehicle also presents a significant business risk. Distraction from the use of smart phones while driving is a leading cause of accidents, which can have sizable costs from bent metal and injured workers.

But these accidents also come with the risk of liability and potentially significant judgments in cases where the smart phones can be shown to be a contributing factor to the accidents (for more information see the Aegis white paper on risk and liability). While even the largest of the Fortune 500 companies are affected by such events, the impact can be even greater for the SME, potentially putting companies out of business all together. FleetSafer provides a cost effective method for the SME to actively manage the use of smart phones and tablets and enforce company cell phone use policies while employees are driving on the job, and can provide a return on investment through avoided accidents.

Read More]]>no-reply@cogosense.com (Olen Vanderleeden)Press ReleasesTue, 05 Aug 2014 12:32:46 -0700NHTSA new study + Aegis Mobility 2014 Distracted Driving Surveyhttp://cogosense.com/distracted-driving/blog/entry/aegis-mobility-2014-distracted-driving-survey
http://cogosense.com/distracted-driving/blog/entry/aegis-mobility-2014-distracted-driving-surveyDespite the growing awareness, media coverage, accidents and fatalities from distracted driving, we have seen a steady trend in responses to our annual survey. Company attitudes and their approach to managing distracted driving have changed little over the past few years. What has changed is a drop in the level of confidence respondents have in the enforcement methods being used. On the one hand we have growing awareness of the distracted driving problem, while on the other we have decreasing confidence in policy enforcement. And the response seems to be to stick with the same monitoring and enforcement methods. Is it time for a new approach?

The NHTSA just released a new study that shows Distracted Driving accounts for 15% of economic impact motor crashes cause, which tallies up to $129 billion when looking at the overall societal harm caused by these crashes. Surely it is time to take a more proactive approach and look at technology solutions to help curb these distractions and further promote safe driving behaviors.

Read More]]>no-reply@cogosense.com (Jim Curran)Opinion and AnalysisThu, 29 May 2014 16:23:55 -0700The Connected Car Still Ripe for Distracted Drivinghttp://cogosense.com/distracted-driving/blog/entry/the-connected-car-still-ripe-for-distracted-driving
http://cogosense.com/distracted-driving/blog/entry/the-connected-car-still-ripe-for-distracted-drivingAegis Mobility's COO Brian Simmers recently had the pleasure of being a guest on the Peggy Smedley Show (www.peggysmedleyshow.com), the voice of M2M & Connected Devices, to discuss the use of technology to prevent distracted driving within the ecosystem of the Connected Car. The audio interview can be found here.

While car manufacturers have made great strides in making driver interaction with mobile capabilities safer and less distracting, the presence of the mobile device itself in the vehicle continues to be a major problem. The problem at a high level is three-fold: 1) not all cars on the road today, or in the near future, are "connected" with the high-tech features necessary to limit driver distraction 2) use of the vehicle controls is optional and 3) drivers are addicted to their mobile devices and the way they ring, ding, feel and look.

To truly eliminate the problem today, additional technology solutions are needed. This technology must automatically activate using flexible trigger methods and allow people to access the features that they want, but in a safe manner and in a way that they can't override. In the future, the car itself can be part of the solution and we envision a world where the car can tell the network what devices are in it and whether it is driving or not, and the network can mediate the calls, text and data traffic based on this contextual information.

During the interview, Brian Simmers discussed a number of topics including the success of the Aegis Mobility FleetSafer solution for distracted driving due to mobile use in enterprises and our pioneering partnership with the State of Iowa and their TEXTL8R distracted driving software aimed at teen drivers in their state.